


The Adventure Of Mr. John Halberd (1877)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [15]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Destiel - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Threats, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 22:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: Case 9: The ever-turbulent Balkan political scene comes to London, and Watson meets two people of some importance – one of whom subsequently gets a lifetime job in a nice, warm country.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyster99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyster99/gifts).



> Mentioned elsewhere as 'the affair of the Sultan of Turkey'.

It was September, which meant that it was a certain blue-eyed someone's birthday. His thirty-third, so not perhaps a notable one, but as usual, I was totally stumped as to what to get the man who could buy anything he wanted. Fortunately, inspiration came in the unlikely form of Mrs. MacAndrew's maid Sylvia, who mentioned to me how she dreaded having to dust the presentation 'angel sword' that Holmes had been given by his father. I knew that all of Sir Charles' children had received one of these, and could see that its razor-sharp blade would indeed scare some people. 

I waited until Holmes was out, then set about carefully measuring the object, before heading for a small shop I knew which could deal with such things. Sure enough, they were able to provide a safe and secure mounting for the sword, such that it could be either displayed on a surface like a photograph, or even hung on the wall. And when I saw Holmes' happy face as I presented it to him, I knew that I had made a good choice.

'Why an 'angel sword?” I had once asked him. He had smiled at me.

“My mother had wanted to call us all after angels, you see, but my father talked her out of it”, he had said. “In the end, only I had an angel name as my middle one.”

I had been surprised, having assumed (naturally, in my defence) that the 'C' he sometimes signed himself with had been his father's name of Charles.

“I do not know any angel names starting with 'C'”, I had said.

“Castiel”, he had explained. “Mother felt sure that I would be born during her stay in a castle, and my due date was on a Thursday, that angels day of the week. Unfortunately, I wrecked those plans by arriving nearly a month early at home, and on a Wednesday.”

“Which castle were you to have been born at?” I had asked. 

“Windsor”, he had said dryly. I had gulped.

“I only wonder that he did not provide the scabbard to go with it”, I had said, still amazed at his 'royal credentials'.

“Father thought it an important lesson in life”, Holmes had explained. “He said that if we were so stupid as to test how sharp something was by seeing if it would cut us, then we would find life very difficult.”

I had stared at him. Again, he had chuckled.

“You are right”, he had said. “Ranulph had to find out the hard way. And he then went wailing to Mother for sympathy, and got none!”

I smiled at the memory, and with an effort brought myself back to the present. 

“I may have found my next case”, Holmes said, pulling off his horrible long coat and hanging it on the coat-rack. I stared disapprovingly at it; the thing looked paper-thin, and I was sure that come winter, it would not keep him warm.

“Why do you wear that old thing?” I asked curiously. 

It was another thing about him that seemed odd and it was, I felt, a reasonable question. Holmes was after all rich enough to buy himself the very best quality in clothing. Yet for some reason, this question seemed to make him uncomfortable.

“You will laugh at me”, he said quietly. 

“I promise that I will not”, I said, now even more curious. “Go on.”

He hesitated, but continued.

“This was my father's old coat”, he said. “When I was a boy, I used to dress up in it and dream of being a brave knights, rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons. It... was a fantasy world, but when my father got a better coat, I asked for this as a keepsake.”

I would not describe myself as verbally adept, but for once, I managed to say exactly the right thing.

“Well, there you are then.”

He looked at me in confusion.

“You are a modern brave knight, fighting crime, saving ladies from distress, and slaying the dragon of falsehood with your angel blade of justice.”

I do not think I have ever seen him turn so red. But he looked pleased, even if I was silently mortified at the verbal diarrhoea that I had just spouted. I hurried on.

“Youmentionedaboutacase?”

I spoke maybe a little too quickly. The twinkle in his blue eyes told me that he was quite aware of my desire not to dwell on what I had just said, but mercifully he let it drop.

“I have encountered a Mr. John Halberd in my travels”, he said. “He is about forty years of age, of foreign and possibly Balkan extraction, and a sailor. He has come across some small matter which, whilst it appears trivial on the surface, may be something more. One never knows.”

“Tell me about it”, I said.

“He lives in Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs (1)”, Holmes said. “That area's long waterfront is, as you might expect for such a area, dotted with pubs. And many of the cater specifically for certain nationalities, whose sailors drift to them knowing that they will meet people from their home country, and be able to talk in their own language.”

I was not sure how I felt about that. England's strength, I had always thought, was not just the people who came to the country, but those who came and integrated into it, adding their own culture to ours. People who kept to their own and did not mix – well, it made me uneasy for some reason. One only had to look almost anywhere in Europe, especially to the disparate Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, to see that different cultures side by side did not for a happy country make. 

“His house is in the same road as one of these establishments”, Holmes went on, seemingly unaware of my existential crisis. “It is called 'The Sultan of Turkey'.”

“I would not have thought Mohammedans would need a tavern”, I said dubiously. Holmes smiled.

“You are forgetting the many Christian subjects come under his rule in south-eastern Europe”, he said. “That may be part of the problem. Greeks still under Ottoman rule, Macedonians, Rumelians, Bulgars, Rumanians, Wallachians – all want independence in some form or another, but all dislike each other almost as much as they dislike their Mohammedan overlords.”

“Do they not have their own taverns?” I asked.

“That is what makes 'The Sultan of Turkey' unusual”, Holmes explained. “Most taverns only cater to one cultural minority. To find one that caters to several is curious. And our potential client, Mr. Halberd, is worried that something is afoot.”

“Twelve inches”, I said.

He looked at me in confusion.

“What is afoot?” I sniggered. “Twelve inches!”

He shook his head at me, but I saw that smile.

+~+~+

We were expecting Mr. Halberd at four o'clock, but from Holmes' reaction, the character that was shown up at that time was not him. Furthermore, he was not at all welcome. 

“Mr. Sebastian Moran”, Holmes said, and I shuddered at the chill in his voice. “What foul wind brings you here?”

Our guest was a tallish blond man of about fifty years of age, and very clearly felt that he was descending some way Beneath His Station to visit our rooms. He was from his name not nobility, but that did not stop him looking down his nose at us both. 

“Your brother Bacchus is away dealing with the latest Balkan mess”, he said disdainfully. “We have spoken with Mr. John Halberd, and advised him that he does not require your services after all.”

I knew Holmes well enough by this time to know that when he narrowed his eyes like that, trouble was not far behind.

“Mr. Halberd asked me to investigate certain happenings at a Millwall tavern”, he said calmly. “He did not go into detail. I have not yet started my inquiries.”

“You will drop this matter”, our visitor said shortly.

“No.”

I had to turn away to hide my smile. This 'Mr. Moran' was clearly one of those dreadful 'man-children' who were unacquainted with that particular two-letter word. He spluttered as he tried to process my friend's response, and it was the best part of a minute before he could bring himself to speak again.

“What the blazes do you mean by that, sir?” he demanded.

“I rather think that the word 'no' is self-explanatory, sir”, Holmes said, still with an almost preternatural calmness about him. “It can hardly be said to be of extraneous length. Or would you like me to fetch you a dictionary, so that you can look it up?”

I barely bit back a snigger. Holmes clearly heard me, for I caught the slightest twitch at the edge of his mouth. Our visitor spluttered again.

“The likes of you, sirrah, do not say 'no' to Her Majesty's Government!” he all but shouted.

“Well, if Her Majesty comes to me with a reason, then I shall of course bow very low, and do her the courtesy of listening”, Holmes said mildly. “Or you could offer one yourself. But a peremptory demand – that will get you nowhere. Indeed, if such tactics do work at your department, then that says something rather ill about the way things are run therein.”

“I do not think that you know who you are dealing with, sir”, our visitor said coldly.

It was definitely a threat. Holmes banged down hard on the table with his first, making us both jump.

“First, I will be informing my good friend Mr. Disraeli about this visit”, he said coldly. “And second, you have a choice, sir. You may leave by the door, or I will bodily take hold of you and eject you through the window, the cost of replacing same being more than worth ridding us of your foul presence!”

Our visitor huffed in annoyance but, seeing Holmes rising to his feet, hastily made his exit, pointedly not looking at either of us. I stared after him in wonderment, then remembered something that he had said right at the start.

“What did he mean by talking about your brother being away?” I asked. 

Holmes sighed.

“Three of my elder brothers – Lucius, Bacchus and Gaylord – all work for the government in a somewhat irregular capacity”, he said.

I stared at him in confusion. He sighed again.

“They are, to use the colloquial term that Bacchus in particular loves, 'fixers'”, he said. “They sort out messes made by government ministers and other politicians. Mr. Moran is Bacchus' superior, and with, incredible as it may seem, even less in the way of human understanding.”

“You do not seem pleased at your brothers' career choices?” I ventured. 

“I can see that, sooner or later, I am going to come into conflict with one or more of them”, Holmes sighed. "Most likely with Bacchus. His interests is making things go away, with justice a poor second. Mine are justice first, and I do not care if it inconveniences some stuffed shirt in the process. I wonder.....”

He frowned for a moment, then nodded.

“I think that we need an evening out”, he said with a smile. “I hear that Millwall is very nice at this time of year.”

“I shall get my coat”, I smiled.

+~+~+

I would not say that this part of London was rough, but I was more than glad to have recently purchased a new box of bullets for my gun, which was loaded and in my pocket as we drew up outside 'The Sultan of Turkey'. The tavern-owner obviously shared my friend's terrible sense of humour, for the pub sign was a large turkey with a sultan's hat perched at a jaunty angle on its head. I felt quite entitled to roll my eyes at it.

Inside, it was not as bad as I had feared, and Holmes spoke to the innkeeper for some little time before returning with two pints of fair-quality ale. I asked him what he had talked about.

“I told him that we were meeting someone here”, he said, “and asked him to point the man round to our table where 'Mr. Smith' and 'Mr. Jones' would be waiting for him.”

“Could you not think of any less imaginative names?” I chuckled. “He will think that we are gentlemen who want to bump someone off, and are here to hire an assassin!”

He smiled his slow smile.

“Exactly!” he said. “And would you feel impelled to ask awkward questions of such a person?”

+~+~+

We had been there for over half an hour, and I was beginning to wonder if our 'guest' would actually show, when a tall figure lurched around the corner of the divide. He baulked when he saw us, and looked set to make a run for it, but Holmes spoke first.

“Greetings, Mr. Halberd”, he said. “Although if you do desire our continued acquaintance, may I start by suggesting that you use you real name?”

The man went pale, but placed his drink on the table and sat in the free chair. There was an awkward silence for at least a minute before he spoke.

“Aleksander”, he rumbled.

“That will do for now”, Holmes said amiably. “Let us start with the obvious question. Why did you lie to me?”

“I did not exactly, sir”, he said. His English was good, but there was a definite southern European accent of some sort in there. “I came to your country last year on a visit, and applied to live here. I changed my name to John Halberd, but your English law says that can only be done officially after I become a citizen.”

“I see”, Holmes said. “I take it that your approaching me has some connection with the recent unrest in the Balkans, and as your name appears to be of Bulgarian extraction, possibly the uprising in that region?”

The man nodded.

“I have – had – a brother, Yulian”, he said, his face darkening as he spoke. “He lived in a village, Batak; it was miles from anywhere, so I thought he was safe enough. Once I had enough money here, I was going to ask him to join me. But I never got the chance.”

“You will know if you read the papers that the Russians are attacking the Turks just now, so my people saw it as their chance to break free. Trouble was, they rose too soon. The Turks were able to crush them and.... and....”

He took a strong drink. I went to the nearby-side-bar to order him another; he looked as if he would need it. He waited until I returned before continuing.

“Konstantin, a friend of mine, lived not far from Yul. He was the one who told me. Yul's village.... was wiped out, and everyone – men, women and children – they were all murdered in cold blood.”

I swallowed hard. I had read of such atrocities, but hearing of them at first-hand was much more difficult that I would have thought.

“Why has this not been in the papers?” I asked.

“Can you not guess?” Holmes said softly. “Mr. Disraeli, although he means well, seeks to keep the Turks as an ally, even if that means overlooking the occasional mass killing. The “Times” bows to no man, but it will have been warned to be one hundred per cent certain of its facts before publishing anything, so it would only act if it had cast-iron evidence. And I am sure that, before that happens, the government will be carefully leaking stories about Russian atrocities, all of which are backed up by 'convenient' eye-witness testimonies.”

“That bastard from the government came to my house earlier”, Aleksander growled, “and threatened me. He wanted Kon's address, but I would not give it to him. But I am afraid, sir. I want my brother avenged, but I do not want my friend's blood on my head.”

“It shall not be”, Holmes said firmly. “Do you have your friend's address?”

The man passed over a slip of paper. Holmes read it, and smiled.

“Let me tell you what is about to happen”, he said. “I do not underestimate the abilities of the government, and in particular that foul Mr. Moran, who is training up my lounge-lizard of a brother into something as unpleasant and unnecessary as his self. Aleksander, whatever you do, you must not go to or try to communicate with your friend in any way, shape or form during the next twenty-four hours.”

“But sir....”

“We two have most certainly been followed here tonight”, Holmes said, and I saw the man turn pale again. “Do not worry; I have readied a little surprise for them when we leave. I shall then be able to communicate a message to your friend to meet with myself and a journalist that I can trust at the “Times”, and with luck the whole story will be in the evening papers, if not the morning ones. Poor Mr. Disraeli will not be pleased, but as dear Bacchus is so fond of telling me, one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs! I am sure that he will be grateful to me for reminding him of that particular saying.”

+~+~+

When we left, I found what Holmes' 'surprise' was. Instead of hailing a cab, we all walked to the nearby quayside where a smart little steamboat was moored, her steaming funnel indicating that she was ready to leave. I noted two men hurrying across the road after us, but by the time they were at the quayside we were sailing across the Thames to Rotherhithe, and safety.

The following day, I was anticipating the evening paper more than usual. However, when Holmes passed it to me, he first drew my attention not to the huge headline – 'Turkish Massacre Of The Innocents' – but to a small article on the bottom right of the front page. Confused, I read it, then frowned.

“Both dead?” I asked in horror. Two dead bodies had been dragged from the Thames, and identified as two Bulgars, a Mr. John Halberd and a Mr. Konstantin Phillippolis. 

Holmes shook his head.

“I understand how government works”, he said bitterly. “Mr. Moran's is not the only department engaged in 'fixing' things. My journalist friend was most grateful for the story that will doubtless greatly advance his career, and in return agreed to print something in his estimable newspaper that may or may not have been the whole truth.”

“So there were no bodies?” I asked.

“This is London”, he said grimly. “There will always be bodies in the Thames, as long as it flows to the sea. But I have ensured that our Bulgar friends have today been dispatched aboard the “Cynewulf” to the New World, although I am sure that the United States has its own Mr. Morans, and that they are just as evil. But hopefully our two friends will do better there than here, where a vengeful government may try to kill them out of sheer spite.”

I would like to have said that our government would never stoop to such a low, but I was beginning to have my doubts.

+~+~+

There was a most curious postscriptum to this case about a month after the publication of the story of the Batak Massacre. I arrived home one Friday feeling even more tired than usual; I had had a run of 'difficult' patients, many of whom had had little wrong with them other than a case of advanced hypochondria. I had hoped to come home to a hot dinner, but Holmes told me that he was expecting a visitor in the next half-hour, and that we would go out for a meal afterwards rather than inconvenience dear Mrs. MacAndrew. I was also sure that there was something very slightly different about our rooms, even though I could not quite put my finger on it. Fortunately there were some delicious pastries and some coffee to take the edge off my hunger, so I waited for our visitor.

Who, I was not pleased to find, was none other than the unctuous Mr. Moran. 

“You have gone too far in this, Mr. Holmes”, he said, not even sitting down before beginning his tirade. “You have blown some minor diplomatic incident up into a crisis that may bring down Her Majesty's Government,”

“I hardly think several thousand people being murdered can be defined as a 'minor diplomatic incident'”, Holmes said dryly. “And if Her Majesty's Government really does condone such behaviour, then perhaps our monarch should find herself a better government. One with morals, to start with.”

“The likes of you and your 'friend' here do not lecture those in power”, Mr. Moran said loftily. (I wondered at the sneer directed in my direction, but did not have time to comment on it). “We know what is best for the country, and we shall not allow the likes of you to stand in our way.”

“That sounded like a threat”, Holmes said mildly. “Are you sure that Mr. Disraeli will be happy to hear of his public servants behaving like a bunch of tin-pot dictators?”

“I do not believe you when you claim fellowship with our prime minister”, Mr. Moran said. “Besides, if anything were to happen to either you or your 'friend' here – and 'accidents' do happen, Mr. Holmes - then be assured that he would only be told what he needed to know.”

Holmes smiled. I was beginning to know the man; I sensed that he had something up his sleeve. Sure enough, he crossed to his bedroom door which, unusually, was slightly ajar, and opened it. 

“Why do you not tell him that yourself?” Holmes grinned.

And out of his room came – Mr. Benjamin Disraeli! Mr. Moran actually screamed, and fairly bolted from the room.

+~+~+

The late evening edition of the “Times” had a further article of interest; the re-appointment of some minor government functionary who was being sent to administer the more distant reaches of British Guyana in South America. A lifetime appointment, unusually.

+~+~+

Our next case would involve the death of a spy, whose alleged murderer was a man with both a club foot and an abominable wife.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Contrary to London folklore, the name of this peninsula has nothing to do with the nearby town of Barking, but does connect with the barking of dogs. Many years ago the royal palace at Greenwich, which lay directly south of the area on the Kentish side of the Thames, was also home to the royal kennels. The sound of the dogs barking could be heard for miles, hence the name.


End file.
